


Keeper of My Heart

by captainamergirl



Category: Beverly Hills 90210 (1990)
Genre: Angst to Fluff, Drabble Collection, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:48:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 3,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27079096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainamergirl/pseuds/captainamergirl
Summary: Kelly and Brandon: A to Z.
Relationships: Kelly Taylor/Brandon Walsh
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Attraction

**A - Attraction**  
  
He still felt it when he looked at her; when their eyes would accidentally - or not so accidentally - lock across the table in the gang's old booth. Even surrounded by their new circle of friends, it was just the two of them in that crummy, memory-ridden diner, in his mind. That old attraction, that familiar fevered desire would boil up in his throat, almost constricting his very ability to breathe. The attraction that made him want to do something totally un-Brandon Walsh like, such as grab her by the arm, pull her into the nearest bathroom stall, pull her dress up and explore every contour and curve of her hot skin before they melded together. But that was not something Brandon Walsh did. Not something that anyone would expect or accept from him. That was a stunt best left to Dylan McKay - the devil, the ultimate ladies' man, the original Beverly Hills rebel without a cause. Not Brandon - not boring, stable, unfailingly consistent Brandon Walsh. He knew that he would never be Dylan. That she would never look at him the way she did his best friend. He should have learned after all this time to accept it but he never had.  
  
So the slow burn of attraction would continue to course through his veins like molten lava but would have no outlet for relief.  
  
So he turns to Emily and whispers in her ear, asks her if they could just get the hell out of there? She says yes and they head for the door. He looks back at Kelly and for a moment there he swears she is watching him under those thick dark eyelashes with heat in her cool baby blues but he thinks he knows better.


	2. Baby

**B - Baby**  
  
 _Baby._ Bundle of joy. Stork bringer. Infant. Responsibility. Diapers. Fussing. Coddling. Hope. Plans. Dreams. The future ...  
  
All these names and adjectives for the life growing inside her were running through his head as he listened to her tell him the big news she had been literally carrying around inside her body for weeks now.  
  
"You're sure?"  
  
"Three at-home pregnancy tests and a visit to the doctor don't lie, Brandon," she said.  
  
Here she was with her heart in her hands, wanting him to solve their problems the way he always had, and in the back of his mind all he could think was, _How the hell do I tell Kelly?_ He didn't know if she would even care at this point but he felt duty bound to tell her anyway. They had once meant something to each other, they were still friends, and he was hoping ...  
  
What _was_ he hoping? That Kelly would be okay with him being the father of another woman's baby? That she would actually say, _Raise your baby with Emily but be with me, Brandon._  
  
Emily looked harshly at him. "I am not ready to be a mother, Brandon," she said. "I think I'm going to have an abortion."  
  
And just like that, all that might have been, all the responsibility and also the hope, was gone.


	3. Crush

**C - Crush**  
  
"Emily went through with it," he said. "And I honestly don't know whether to be devastated or relieved. I know that makes me sound so horrible." He rubbed his hand over his tired, bloodshot eyes. It's been weeks since he's had a decent night's sleep and the bright California sun scorches his pupils as they sit together in the quad, looking like any other normal couple. But they aren't. They are Brandon Walsh and Kelly Taylor, and their relationship could never be classified as "normal" or ordinary or simple.  
  
She touched his back then, rubbed it in little circles with the warm pads of fingertips. They make his skin feel warm and also raw inside his soul. He feels so weak. He has just lost his own child and here he was thinking about Kelly this way. When she was just trying to comfort him like any friend would do. He felt sick as he felt turned on.  
  
"You're not horrible, Brandon," she said. "You could never be horrible. You don't have it in you."  
  
"Bull! You don't know what's inside me, Kelly," he barked, suddenly irrationally angry and it was all focused on her, directed at her. All the sadness, all the disappointments, he felt like he could trace them back to her. He wanted to run from her as much as he wanted to stay right there and **crush** her petite body to his more built one, possess her lips and her soul and her heart and never let her go. He was going insane. He felt it and he couldn't seem to stop it.  
  
"You don't know the thoughts I have or the things I feel," he spat. "You have no idea. I didn't try to stop Emily! I didn't try to put up a fight and because of that I'll never hold my son or daughter. You tell me how I'm not horrible when the whole time I was just thinking that I needed to get through this trial so I could come back to you. A 'trial'! My own flesh and blood was a 'trial'. Not even a real consideration. All I thought of was you and how a child would screw up the oh-so- _delicate_ balance of our relationship. You don't know what I feel so don't pretend you do."  
  
He then jumped to his feet and stomped off, not knowing where he was going but just knowing he needed to get far away from here, from Beverly Hills, and most of all, from her ...


	4. Dumbfounded and Drowning

**D - Dumbfounded and Drowning**  
  
Running off and trying to put your troubles behind you was a classic Dylan McKay move. Not a Brandon Walsh thing to do. No, Brandon was hyper self-aware and very level-headed and grounded. So of course Kelly had been **dumbfounded** when she learned that not only had he left the university in the middle of the Spring semester but that he had left Beverly Hills altogether. He left her too. Left her behind. That's what she felt but never did say.

There were a lot of things Kelly didn't say that she wanted to. She didn't tell Donna how her obsessive need for orderliness drove her batshit crazy sometimes ... Never could bring herself to tell Dylan that she had fallen out of love with him a long time ago and that she wished he would stop jerking her around ... Never got the courage to verbalize to Emily just how jealous she was that she had had Brandon in her life when Kelly herself felt so alone. And she had definitely never told Brandon how much she still missed him and loved him. She had always believed that there would be time to take care of all that but how wrong she had been. Her mom said she put off what was uncomfortable until it disappeared altogether and she was more than right this time. Boy did she ever hate when her mother was right.  
  
Emily said she hadn't seen him either and Kelly wanted to rail at her, maybe even slap her, put all the blame on Brandon's swift exit on the other woman in the equation, but knew she had a big hand in the events. She knew she had driven Brandon away and that he was treading eye deep, close to **drowning** , in his own misery because she had been too scared to reach out to him and make things right even when she had really wanted to.  
  
So Kelly went to all of her and Brandon's old haunts, all the places they had their firsts, all the places they declared their true feelings and shared their bodies and souls; even scoured the halls of the old high school they used to spend their days in but he was gone. Gone and disappeared and took her heart with him to parts unknown. She wondered if she would ever get it back. If she would ever get him back ...


	5. Everything Entrancing

**E - Everything Entrancing**  
  
They are dancing under the stars, **everything** is beautiful. It should be perfect. In her dreams, she dances just like this with Him, her fingers splayed across his strong chest, his hands lightly settled on her hips, the wind tracing circles through her long hair and the feel of him pressed against her is like no other. But she can only dream it now because he is gone. She is dancing in another's arms and he may be handsome and debonair but his eyes aren't Brandon's blue ones and his hair isn't Brandon's dark brown and his hands don't **entrance** her the way Brandon's did when they would touch her, move inside her and fill her up. They have been dating for three months and it feels like the longest three months of her life. She thinks she could be in love with him - if he were just Brandon Walsh but no one else is. He's one of a kind. It took years for her to realize what a gem he was and just seconds to lose him forever. She hates it, she hates herself. She wants it all back. She wants to do everything differently, love him harder and never let go.  
  
She is lost in humming along to Liz Phair's "Why Can't I?" to distract herself from this intimate moment she's not sharing with the right man when suddenly she looks up, her eyes pulled forward almost by some invisible force and she sees Him standing there, watching her from the corner of the makeshift dance floor.  
  
"Brandon," she says. It's just one word but it carries so much emotion with it - love, longing, anger, pain, pathos and then hope ...  
  
"Brandon," she says again, this time louder and disentangles herself from her date's arms and takes after him as he turns and moves away.


	6. Faith

**F - Faith**  
  
 _"Brandon."_  
  
His name comes out sounding a tad harsh but also breathless and even a bit hopeful. She has managed to catch up with him at the very end of the dirt-covered driveway as he is about to get into his little convertible and drive off and leave her again. This time she won't let him. She at least wants to have her say. After all the months of waiting, wondering and worrying she deserves that much, doesn't she?  
  
He turns around and looks at her, the blue of his eyes haunting and glassy-sheened under the bright twinkling stars overhead. He looks away for a moment and then back at her. "Hey, Kel."  
  
 _" 'Hey, Kel'?"_ She echoes. "You've been gone for months and months and that's all you have to say?"  
  
"What the hell else is I'm supposed to say?"  
  
"How about 'I've missed you' or 'I am a fucking selfish jerk for running off on you, _Kel'!"_  
  
He sighs. "Can we not do this here?"  
  
"Is there a better place?" She asks, wanting to rail at him, slap him senseless, and kiss him breathless all at the same time.  
  
"Yeah. Anywhere but here ..."  
  
"Why because you're scared everyone will see what a jerk you are?" She waves her arms to encompass the whole party just beyond the gate and the few people who are watching them with obvious interest from the porch.  
  
"No. I just don't think it's the right place. Have a little faith in me okay?"  
  
She sputters a bit. Have faith in _him?_ After he turned around and ran out on her, not calling or writing for months? Leaving her to wonder if he had been hurt or worse?  
  
She should spit in her face and walk away like he did. But she doesn't and she hates herself even as she slips her hand into his waiting one and they climb into his car and speed off into the night.


	7. Greatest

**G-Greatest**  
  
He looks over at her for perhaps a moment too long as they drive through the cool night but he’s trying to memorize her, make sure she’s really there and not another figment of his imagination. She looks as beautiful as she ever did with her blonde hair flying loose and free in the wind and her deep blue eyes glistening with a sheen of tears. He never wanted to make her cry, never wanted to her to feel pain or loss. To think he’s the cause of it makes him more than a bit angry at himself and leaves a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. Still, he’s so glad to see her. Picturing her in his mind for months is nothing like the reality of seeing her here, sitting beside him with her hand so close to his that he could reach out and intertwine their fingers, lock them together forever and never let go. He’s had a lot of women in his life but she was the only one he could imagine being with forever, the **greatest** love of his life, the one who captivated his heart and soul completely seemingly centuries ago, rather than just a few years ago.  
  
He has wasted too much time going back and forth with her, back and forth, running in circles, trying to deny his feelings and embrace them all at the same time. Feeling inadequate because he’s not Dylan and he never will be. Knowing Dylan’s the great love of her life, it breaks his heart. He doesn’t know why he took up with Emily again after all she pulled in high school – maybe to punish Kelly, maybe to make her jealous, maybe just wanting to be self-destructive and petty and senseless just one time, to know how it felt to be Dylan McKay, walk around a bit in his shoes, but it didn’t work. It had the opposite effect. While Dylan’s love me, kiss me, save me, fuck me routine worked for him, Brandon’s didn’t and never had. Eventually he was going to have to learn to be comfortable in his own skin again. But it was so difficult because all he wanted to be was the guy Kelly Taylor wanted and needed most and he’s not sure he ever will be.


	8. Heal

**H - Heal**  
  
She had come with him for some reason and she thought she wanted to see it through to the bitter end, hear what he had to say, listen to what excuses he could come up with to explain his uncharacteristic behavior. She didn’t think it would make a difference though. They had reached the point of no return and the healing was slow in coming, if it ever arrived at all …  
  
He parked his convertible in front of West Beverly High, the halls they had once haunted, where they had walked together and apart seemingly so long ago. “What are we doing here?” she asked.  
  
“Just come on,” he beckoned.  
  
She reluctantly followed him and they walked onto the school grounds. So many memories assaulted her and all of them she felt like she could trace back to Brandon. They hadn’t discovered their mutual feelings until long after they graduated high school and had gone on to college but Kelly had nurtured a crush on him when he first arrived in California. It hadn’t been rooted in reality, had been just a flight of fancy, until the first time they kissed and she knew - knew she wanted him in her life forever.  
  
She continued to follow him and watched as he took a pin from his pocket and jimmied the lock on the gymnasium door. She shook her head. “You’ve discovered new talents, Walsh,” she said, her voice tinged with anger and disbelief. “I don’t know you anymore. I thought I did but …”  
  
She turned to leave, so disgusted with him and hating herself even more for still caring when he grabbed her hand and pulled her back. “Don’t leave. Not when there’s so much we need to say to each other.”  
  
He looked down at his feet for a moment before turning and staring intently into her eyes. “I don’t want to let you go, Kel. I really don’t. I never could. Believe me, I tried. I ran so far and so fast but I could never get away from my feelings for you.”  
  
Tears moistened her eyes. “Why would you want to run away from me?”  
  
“Because I was scared, Kel. Scared that I would have sold my soul to the devil for another chance to be with you, for a chance to have you look at me the way you looked at Dylan.”  
  
“You’re not Dylan, Brandon.”  
  
“I know, and I never will be,” he said bitterly.  
  
“But you don’t get it. I don’t want Dylan. Not anymore. Maybe I never really did … You were the one I wanted from the beginning; you’ll be the one I want till the bitter end but I just don’t think we can go back now.”  
  
“Maybe we can go forward then… ”


	9. Ice

**I - Ice**  
  
They are sitting on the bleachers in the old gym now. She looks up at him. "I just don't get it - why Emily Valentine of all people? After all she pulled. She drugged you, Brandon!"  
  
"I haven't forgotten," he answered quietly. "Maybe I was trying to live on the edge for once. Maybe I just wanted to shock you - or myself."  
  
"No you hurt me, there's a difference," she said, looking over at him. Some of the **ice** in her eyes had melted away and was replaced with a fountain of tears. He regretted every tear she had ever cried over him, every moment he made her doubt him, every second she worried that he wasn't coming back.  
  
"I just don't get it, Brandon," she said softly. "I'm supposed to be the self-destructive, flip-out-on-a-dime one in our relationship. Who am I if I'm not that person and you can't save me?"  
  
"You're strong, Kel, you can help yourself now and I'll always be right beside you to catch you in case you slip."  
  
"What if I don't believe you?"  
  
"It will take time for you to believe in me again but I am committed to you. I always have been but I have insecurities too, Kel. _Big_ ones. I came back to deal with them. I also came back ... for you ..."  
  
Tears coursed down her cheeks and he cried openly as well, then he leaned over and risked touching her forehead with his own, their tears melding together so neither could tell where they ended and the other began.  
  
They sat that way for a long time and then Kelly pulled back. "Dance with me, Brandon," she said in a soft yet hoarse voice.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"I wanted you to take me to prom every year and you never did but if we're going to start over let's begin from the beginning."  
  
He smiled, his first real smile in seemingly ages, and gently taking her hand, led her out to the middle of the gym's waxy floor. She slid one arm around his neck and the other, she rested on his chest, fingers splayed out like she had dreamt of doing so many times when she was a teenager - still did dream of, actually. He settled his hands lightly on her hips and they began to sway slowly to music only they could hear ...


	10. Joy

**J- Joy**  
  
"Joy to the world ..." Donna screeched in a very horrid singing voice. "Kelly and Brandon are back together, all is peaceful, all is calm ... _Finally, thank god!"_  
  
Kelly laughed and aimed a pillow at Donna's head. "We're not even officially back together."  
  
"What do you consider 'official'?" Donna asked, ducking the pillow easily enough and flopping down beside Kelly on the sofa. "You danced in the dark high school gym - so romantic by the way ... You've kissed like five hundred times, you've admitted you still love each other ..."  
  
"I know ..."  
  
"But you're still gun shy," Donna said.  
  
"Yeah something like that," Kelly agreed with a nod. "I mean, what if we don't work out this time? What if he leaves for good and never comes back?"  
  
"Kel, I'm supposed to be the worry-wart in this relationship, okay?" Donna said with a smile, linking her arm through Kelly's. "You and Brandon are meant to be and what's meant to be, as my father always says, _will_ be."  
  
"I hope you're right."  
  
"Just stop worrying and get dressed. There is a party off-campus tonight and I know for a fact that a certain Mr. Walsh will be there."  
  
Kelly slapped Donna's arm. "You're such a schemer."  
  
"Damn right! Now go and get dressed."


End file.
